Could it be déjà vu ... all over again?

Saturday

Jan 19, 2013 at 3:15 AMJan 23, 2013 at 12:26 PM

As fellow Democrats race to put bills on the desk of Gov. Maggie Hassan that will increase taxes on beer, gas and vehicle registrations, so too is the State Employees Association rushing the governor for more taxpayer money.

According to news reports, the union represents more than 10,000 state workers jockeying for a raise. Union President Diana Lacey argues that her contingent of state workers — about 90 percent of the executive branch employees whose contracts expire June 30 — will have gone more than four years without a general wage increase. And to add insult to injury, step increases had been frozen for one of those years and employees took the equivalent of a pay cut when pensions were overhauled by the Legislature two years ago, she added.

It takes some serious chutzpah to seek pay raises when it looks like Gov. Hassan will have to freeze state spending in order to balance the current budget by June 30. That move that may require layoffs rather than the anticipation of any pay raises.

We have to wonder if Lacey is willing to eat some of her own pleading by having to answer to those who lose their jobs for the sake of upping the pay for those who remain.

Lacey seems to also be ignoring a projected deficit in the next biennium before budget talks even began. Was she not paying attention when the governor and legislative officials were briefed only weeks ago?

If nothing else, Lacey should have been willing to give the heavily union-backed governor some breathing room before calling in the IOUs issued to Hassan during the past election cycle.

If Hassan refuses the pay raise request it will look like she welched on the deal. If she grants the request she will help her party dig the same tax-and-spend hole in which her party was buried in 2010 — the election that saw Democrats swept out of office in wholesale fashion.

Seems as if Lacey has put the governor between a rock and a hard place. Talk about a gubernatorial initiation by hell fire!

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While we are at it, Lacey and the governor might want to look out the Statehouse window at Granite Staters who have not had pay raises for many a full moon, longer than some state employees. They should also look at those lucky enough to have jobs, unlike those recently laid off by Brookstone and other once up-and-coming New Hampshire firms.

For too many it isn't getting any better out in the world of free enterprise where success is measured by profit and loss, not whether you can tax someone enough to give someone (read: state employees) a pay raise.